Daryl Dragon, who served as one-half of the popular music duo Captain and Tennille in the ’70s, died Wednesday at a hospice in Prescott, Ariz., his publicist said. The cause of the death was renal failure. He was 76.
Toni Tennille, his ex-wife and partner in the duo, was there with him, as she had been for decades.
“He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly, Tennille said in a statement. “I was at my most creative in my life, when I was with him.”
Dragon was a classically trained pianist who worked a keyboardist for the Beach Boys in the late ’60s and early 1970s. The band’s Mike Love was the source of his nautical nickname, because of the type of hats he often wore onstage.
Dragon met Tennille when she hired him for a stage show she was doing. He then recommended her to the Beach Boys, and the couple got together after she joined the band on the road. She and Dragon would sometimes perform together in side gigs. They hit the big time in 1975 with their cover of Neil Sedaka’s song “Love Will Keep Us Together,” which went on to win the 1975 Grammy for Record of the Year. Later, songs such as “Muskrat Love” and “Do That to Me One More Time” would also go on to make the radio charts and become staples of soft rock radio.
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